World News - 3 California Schools to Scan Students' Fingerprints When They Buy Lunch. Sounds like a Police State

A plan to fingerprint elementary school students when they buy lunch has some parents worrying that Big Brother has come to the cafeteria.The Hope Elementary School District has notified parents that, beginning this month, students at Monte Vista, Vieja Valley and Hope elementary schools will press an index finger to a scanner before buying cafeteria food.The scan will call up the student's name and student ID, teacher's name and how much the student owes, since some receive government assistance for food.It is meant to speed up cafeteria lines."It raises sanitary issues, privacy issues — it is kind of Orwellian," said Tina Dabby, a parent of two at Monte Vista Elementary. "It just sounds kind of creepy."Currently, the information is written on paper and transferred to computer so reports can be compiled and sent to the state and federal governments, which reimburse school districts for the subsidized lunches served.... http://www.foxnews.com

In a world sharply divided on Iraq since the U.S.-led war began in 2003, Saddam Hussein's death sentence Sunday unleashed fears of fresh violence, European condemnation of capital punishment and new questions about the fairness of the tribunal that ordered him to hang. Underscoring the fault lines that split the international community and widened the divide between Muslims and Christians, Islamic leaders warned that the verdict could inflame those who revile the United States undermining US policy in the volatile Middle East and inspiring terrorists to strike. Critics accused US President George W. Bush of deliberately arranging the timing of the sentence, handed down two days before pivotal midterm elections in which Democrats are fighting to regain control of the US Congress. "The hanging of Saddam Hussein will turn to hell for the Americans," said Vitaya Wisethrat, a respected Muslim cleric in Thailand, where a bloody Islamic insurgency is raging in the country's south...http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/11/05/hussein.world.reax/index.html?eref=rss_world

A leading conservative proponent of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq now says dysfunction within the Bush administration has turned U.S. policy there into a disaster. Richard Perle, who chaired a committee of Pentagon policy advisers early in President Bush's administration, said had he seen at the start of the war in 2003 where it would go, he probably would not have advocated an invasion to depose Saddam Hussein. Perle was an assistant secretary of defense under President Ronald Reagan. "I probably would have said, 'Let's consider other strategies for dealing with the thing that concerns us most, which is Saddam supplying weapons of mass destruction to terrorists,' " he told Vanity Fair magazine in its upcoming January issue. Asked about the article, White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe said "the president has a plan to succeed in Iraq and we are going forward with it." ...http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/11/04/iraq/main2153180.shtml?source=RSSattr=U.S._2153180

"The families of the victims have the right to smile and celebrate a little by this death sentence against this criminal and his aides." Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki in TV speech. "Long live the people and death to their enemies! Long live the glorious nation, and death to its enemies!" Saddam Hussein "This is a political court, not a judicial court. Iraq is under occupation. The conflict of interest is clear and obvious. You put your enemy in jail and try him. What is the meaning of that? It is illegal under international law." Iraq's former UN ambassador Mohammed Aldouri, who now lives in the United Arab Emirates. "Saddam was undoubtedly a brutal dictator, and even though I wouldn't subscribe to the death penalty, he deserves to be punished severely for the enormity of his crimes." Chandra Muzaffar, president of Malaysia-based International Movement for a Just World. "The judge was unjust and carries out what the US dictates." Laith Kamel, 22, an Iraqi living in Syria...http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=2630121

Less than 24 hours after he was fired from the pulpit of the evangelical megachurch he founded, the Rev. Ted Haggard confessed to his followers Sunday that he was guilty of sexual immorality. In a letter that was read to the congregation of the New Life Church by another clergyman, Haggard apologized for his acts and requested forgiveness. "I am so sorry for the circumstances that have caused shame and embarrassment for all of you," he said, adding that he had confused the situation by giving inconsistent remarks to reporters denying the scandal. "The fact is I am guilty of sexual immorality. And I take responsibility for the entire problem. I am a deceiver and a liar. There's a part of my life that is so repulsive and dark that I have been warring against it for all of my adult life," he said. This Scum Bag should run for office, he would be right at home with the others we call our leaders. ...http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=2630268

Masked federal police clutching automatic rifles took positions on rooftops and erected thick barbed wire fences across streets, preparing for a leftist march Sunday that many fear could spark another episode of violence in this embattled southern city. Across town, leftists massed in a public university campus guarded by protesters bearing clubs and gasoline bombs. Protesters are demanding the resignation of Oaxaca Gov. Ulises Ruiz, who they accuse of rigging the 2004 election to win office and sending groups of gun-toting thugs against his opponents. The five-month-old conflict has rattled President Vicente Fox's administration, scared tourists out of this colonial city and left at least nine people dead, mostly protesters shot by armed gangs....http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,227591,00.html